Kamera Digital News

Country Scientist: Digital camera is perfect for capturing nature shots

October 22nd, 2007

Country Scientist: Digital camera is perfect for capturing nature shots
San Antonio Express, TX
Web Posted: 10/21/2007 10:36 PM CDT

Forrest M. Mims III
Special to the Express-News

In 1888, high school dropout and amateur scientist George Eastman began selling the first successful camera designed for anyone to use. His camera was called the Kodak, and his slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest.”

In 1948, college dropout Edmund Land introduced what many said was impossible, the first camera to make nearly instant photographic prints.

Only a decade or so ago, digital photography revolutionized the inventions of Eastman and Land, and now both of the companies they founded are among many that make and sell digital cameras.

Practical digital cameras arrived on the scene well after the advent of the personal computer. The combination has completely transformed photography. As most of you already know, today anyone equipped with a digital camera, computer and printer can produce in minutes what darkrooms and specialty shops once did in days.

Digital photographs can be trimmed, cropped and even retouched to correct poor lighting, bad contrast and color. All this can be done easily, under your complete control and for a fraction of the cost charged by photo labs.

Most of the photographs that have accompanied this column were made with one of several digital “point and shoot” cameras that cost a few hundred dollars each.

Some photos are made with a fancier rig known as a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex). This camera is much bigger, uses exchangeable lenses and provides complete control of the photographic process. It’s the camera I use for important photo assignments and opportunities.

A good DSLR is much more expensive and provides far more control than a basic point-and-shoot consumer-level camera. The good news is that even an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera can provide very high quality images.

Recently Andrea Ottesen of the University of Maryland learned this firsthand when one of her photographs of a specimen of Irish moss, a beautiful and common variety of seaweed, tied for first place in the 2007 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

Ottesen’s photograph was made using an economical Canon ELPH 7-megapixel digital camera in natural sunlight. Her winning image graced the cover of the Sept. 28 issue of Science, the world’s leading scientific magazine.

An article inside described how the photo was selected by the judges.

“There was this gasp when this photo came up on the screen,” panel of judges member Felice Frankel says. “We shouldn’t forget that we don’t need (complex equipment and techniques) to create beautiful representations.”

In my experience the digital camera is among the most powerful and flexible tools ever designed for amateur scientists and naturalists. So please join me in carrying a digital camera everywhere you go so those of us who have been doing so for years will look a bit more normal.

Maybe you will capture a fabulous image that wins a contest or becomes a magazine cover.

Forrest M. Mims III and his science are featured at www.forrestmims.org. E-mail him at forrest.mims@ieee.org. The Country Scientist appears Mondays.

Entry Filed under: World Digital Camera